Pint of Science 2025 | Dirty Duck, Coventry
Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (University of Warwick)
Carlos Cámara-Menoyo
Senior Research Software Engineer
1. Geodesy
Is what figuring out where things are and how to record them. Focus is on mathematical foundations (coordinates, Earth’s shape).
This was once a huge scientific enterprise, today this is done by satellite and most of us, even very specialist geographers don’t have to think about it very much.
Keywords: precision, geolocation, GPS, LIDAR, coordinates system…
2. Cartogrpahy
Is how we visualize information about things in the world on maps .
The history of cartography is long and detailed, and the question of what was mapped by whom has dramatically shaped the modern world.
Keywords: projections, shapes, size, colour…
Governments
Motivation: public service
Official maps
Companies
Motivation: Business model.
Specific, detailed maps, related to their business model.
Individuals!
Motivation: diverse Coverage and precision: diverse
Each map involves a series of decisions that are anything but objective
No projection is perfect! Projection is an ‘unsolvable problem’ in that however we do it we are going to end up with some distortion somewhere on our map.